Sorc fans suck don't they? I know because I'm one of them. Anyways, I've been thinking a lot about what could be done to make a more interesting mage-class character. I know Blizzard is probably on top of this already, but I like to dream.

It wouldn't be too difficult to move the Sorc as she is now, basically heavy artillery with a few tricks, into a more balanced, still element-heavy caster-hexer. Basically put an emphasis on things like curses, as pepper and spice throughout her wide skill tree of elemental damage. That way, even a 1-ele Sorc wouldn't be so 1-dimensional, "Well, I spam Meteor or ask the Pally to save me" type of character. Within a tree, there could be a number of paths... "If I go down the Fire road only, I still have to choose between dominating the enemy with damage spells or crippling them with hexes within the tree," and striking a proper balance should be interesting.

Some would develop into specialist Hexers, party friendly but able to go it their own way with a Merc and possibly a permanent Minion. Others would stay damage heavy and use Hexes in the same way an Assassin or Necro might have used a curse or Shadow Skill.

One of my specific ideas was to have a Hex where the Sorc would cast a plume of magic smoke on the enemy (this would be a fire skill) and it would reduce their Cast Rate and Block Rate according the skill level. This would be a good way to soften up bosses; it's exactly the kind of thing I'm thinking of for Hexes.

I'm not an expert, but it's an idea, and if anyone wants to play with it feel free. I may be wrong to assume they'll bring a Sorcy-class back, but I would hope so, and with Hexes I think she(he)'d pick up even more interesting flair than just "I'm a Middle Eastern woman with gobs of damage spells."

Remember: Unless the Mage class comes from two different locations depending on gender, it can't be done. The Sorc was of a female only clan.

Oh, I wasn't saying totally import the old Sorc. Just a rehashed version of it from a new culture... I didn't want to waste your time with a bunch of comments like "I think it should be called the Mega Ultra Witch" or something, so I just kept using Sorc. Personally I don't know what you'd call the class, now that one of other classes already took a "witch" title. Something mage-y I guess.

You got me started though... see, I was thinking of lore type ideas too. One thought I had was that a non-ethnic group would crop up that followed a philosophy or religion that the world (Sanctuary, right?) is the only good thing left, and that it must be protected, not only from Hell, but from Heaven. I was kind've thinking of it in the same way you might picture Celtic pagans reacting to a Christianizing invasion, or some such. In Celtic myth, the earth--the dirt--was brimming with sacredness and ebbed and flowed in and out of the world, full of spirits. They didn't look "up" to a Heaven of any sorts. So I was kind of thinking this class--this possibly non-ethnic, anarchist mage class--would start reviving this old tradition and rejecting Heaven, and that is where they get the mythical witch-like connotations. They certainly could be ethnic or have an ethnic origin but I think in post-D2 sanctuary there would be room for people of multiple cultures to come to a common consensus and simultaneously revive/revolutionize their spiritual worldview.

But I didn't bring that up in my first post because it seemed like too much. Anyways, there you have it.

Oh, I wasn't saying totally import the old Sorc. Just a rehashed version of it from a new culture... I didn't want to waste your time with a bunch of comments like "I think it should be called the Mega Ultra Witch" or something, so I just kept using Sorc. Personally I don't know what you'd call the class, now that one of other classes already took a "witch" title. Something mage-y I guess.

Well, there's always Wiccan as well as good ol' Mage or Magus. Even Wizard, if you're so inclined.

Regarding how to get the Mage class interesting, I'd like to suggest a Witch class from an old RPG of mine. In it, the character is purposely designed to be brittle and can't take much punishment but is provided with a range of evasion spells (e.g. Teleport, Force Field, etc) to give him/her breathing time.

For combat, the spells generally fall into these three categories:

1. Big impact nukes (meaning immediate effect) but with casting time
2. Instant self-buffs with limited duration
3. Instant nukes that require reagents (which have to be equipped onto staffs in a manner similar to sockets except interchangeable)

The challenge would often present with the player balancing evasion spells and self-buffs to buy time to cast the big impact nukes. Another challenge would be to manage the reagents, switching to suit the spells you want.

I suggested a Warlock class for D2 long long ago. It was kind of a Druid/Sorc hybrid, who instead of using fire/ice/electric, used magic to create poison effects (like poison nova), mana-based shield bypassing physical damage (like Druids's tornado) that would be the earth skill tree (with attacks like earthquake and rock pillar), and then could be used in melee with staff skills, twirling around with their staff all ninja-like, applying poison and wind damage to it. I don't see why this class couldn't also work in D3 as a completely new take on the Mage.

I am thinking of a totally new character. No hybrid, nothing resembling old Diablo 2. Something refreshing.

Therefore my idea of evolution for a mage character is an Elementalist.

Story of the class:

Mages that are attune to the inner working of the universe itself, they can see beyond the organized form of matter that the world is composed of. They have the ability to see the elements as they are, in their synergy, and how they impact life. They appeared as a result of the destruction of the Worldstone. Many believe they are children of Gods as the world is rejuvenating after the Worldstone's destruction. The truth is theiy are but abominations. Dysfunctional human beings unable to be limited by their senses.
Due to their different perception of the world they are aloof and lonely. They rarely speak and when they do they mumble unintelligible things in an effort to transmit the emotions they perceive though they attunement to the world. When the world is in pain so are they, and since the world is always in pain this burden is a price they must pay from birth till death. Most of them die but the few that reach adulthood are natural mages.
Most of them are still human(save the strongest of them) and insane. All of them are also brilliant the constant presure of emotion from around them selecting only the strongest minds.

As they soon found out no element is pure in the world. There is no such thing as pure elements only pure synergies between elements. Life is an example of a pure synergy. Fire is pure synergy. Water is a pure synergy. Earth is pure synergy. Air is the most un-pure of all synergies.

Due to the constant stress of feeling the pain of the world around them they have short life spans and no feelings.

They are selected at birth by the Wise Men of the Selkup. The Selkup are a tribe sworn to protect the Elementalist. They worship them as Gods.

Key rules of the class:
Al of their skills are of multiple elements. No physical damage skills.
Since they are so akin with the universe their skills are dependent of situations and places.

Example: A certain skill of X damge will do X + 50% if standing near a Waterfall, and if that skill is mainly of water ascedence.
Skills are different depending on the time of day, as well as night. Some are more efficient at dusk. Some are more efficient at dawn.

3 skill trees:

Tree 1:

Damage skills: All of them damage spells designed to the rules above. The skills from the bottom of tree are very powerful but they also damage the player.

Tree 2:

Protection skills: Due to their attunement to the universe they learned how to manipulate the world around them(closely around them) to protect themselves and their friends(they rarely have any friends but hey )

Tree 3:

Insanity skills: Two types of skills in this tree: Control and Liberation.
With the control skills they can keep their sanity making their Damage skills more focused thus doing more damage. With the Liberation skills they give in to their insanity and gain a random COOL(i can't stress COOL enough) aftereffect to their damage skills.

Ok this was from the top of my mind just now and i am no genius. This is what i would like to see in these posts, not just "Something like that class from that game combined with that other class from that other game with a touch of the warlock from WoW). Why do you think Blizzard doesn't care what people write in these posts? Nobody will be impresed by "a druid/sorceress combination".

Try to write a story for your class like i did and things will come easier when choosing what skills this kind of a class could have. It would make the discussions here significantly more interesting.
For me at least

Lore-wise I am picturing something more like a rogue Mage group that, like the Soreceresses before them, have wrested knowledge away from a predominant class. This new Mage group, however, is far less structured than the bands of Sorceresses, and considers itself a resistance group against Heaven, which it blames for Sanctuary's problems. They are not proselytizers, but they will speak to those who will listen to them and will allow any legitimate party to join their cause. They are, in a way, terrorists or mercenaries--somewhere between Final Fantasy VII and Robin Hood, but they primarily use advanced primitive knowledge to undermine what they see as evil--things both of Heaven and Hell.

Of course that could easily put them at odds with the Diablo 3 plot, what do I know?

One thing I would want to see is, because they are rogue, a "muddling" of the purity of their elements towards tricks as well as flashy damage. So the previously mentioned smoke hex; a "poisoning" attack that deals magic damage; a minion that can be made out of shattered enemies; a hex that hits its target with random-direction knockback; you name it. Other than these additions/replacements, I would want this class to still resemble the Sorc.

Of course, I would modify some things. For instance, I'd like to replace Chain Lightning with a skill I call Thunderclap that would be heavily reminiscent of the Fetch from Myth. Basically, heavy lightning damage hits 1-2 proximal targets and the resulting explosions of THEIR bodies causes PHYSICAL damage to nearby targets within a set radius. Obvious room for strategy here.

Other ideas in this vein that I had would be to make Meteor deal 1/2 Physical 1/2 Fire damage on the initial hit, then just fire damage. Or let the minion--the Familiar I'm calling it, since these Mages are witches--deal cold and physical damage. Etc. etc.

I had a new idea for a "fresher" class, called the Alchemist; skill trees would be Lightning Element, Cold Element, and Toxins (because The Serpent and the Rainbow Doctor appropriated Fire). Each tree would be a mix of strategic support skills and combat skills; most damage from Toxins would be Poison type, but there would also be pure Magic type damage from skils based on different toxicities, such as mercury rather than an animal venom. There is a lot of room for creativity in this tree.

Alchemists could use daggers as their primary weapon, normally concealing them under their long sleeves or cloaks or what have you. Many of their skills could focus on enhancing their dagger prowess to deal with enemies close up, and this could create a really interesting class. Their main damage, rather than come from Str, should come from Dex; again, interesting possibilities for a fragile, "silent killer" type here. Perhaps a Lightning tree skill could be used to cloak the Alchemist from sight (by bending the light around it) and allow it to manipulate monsters on the battlefield. It may benefit from a pet like the Familiar or a Homonculus type of monster.

I'm still stuck on the idea of a skill like Thunderclap and I hope something like it gets introduced in the game. If you totally electrocute your enemy with it, rather than just damaging them, their corpse explodes and damages monsters around them. How fun would that be!

How about a Sorc. Class or just Skill branch that focuses on White and Black Magic?? That would probably be referred to as "Angelic" and "Demonic" magic in the Diablo Universe.
Black Magic could focus on damage and/or debuffs. White Magic could focus on healing and/or buffs.
Thoughts?

I just wanted to say "w00t" for the Wizard; it's a more diverse class than a purely element-based Sorc and I think it has gobs of potential. Good job Blizzard. If anything I just take issue with the name (the last time I heard someone say "wizard" it was on a goofy cell phone commercial) but they were kind enough to fit the reasoning into the lore via that journal entry, and I haven't heard anyone else complaining about it. Anywho.. +1... back to lurking.

Think you of the fact that a deaf person cannot hear. Then, what deafness may we not all possess? What senses do we lack that we cannot see and cannot hear another world all around us?
--Quotation of the Orange Catholic Bible from Frank Herbert's Dune

And in my darkest moment, fetal and weeping, the Moon tells me a secret (my confidant): "As full and bright as I am, this Light is not my own." And a million light reflections pass over me.
--Excerpt from Tool's "Reflection"

How about a Sorc. Class or just Skill branch that focuses on White and Black Magic?? That would probably be referred to as "Angelic" and "Demonic" magic in the Diablo Universe.
Black Magic could focus on damage and/or debuffs. White Magic could focus on healing and/or buffs.
Thoughts?